Existing phased array antennas include a wide variety of configurations for various applications, such as satellite reception and remote broadcasting. The desirable characteristics of low cost, light-weight, low profile and mass producibility are provided in general by printed circuit antennas. Printed circuit antennas are defined by flat conductive elements spaced from a single, essentially continuous ground element by a dielectric sheet of uniform thickness.
While a printed circuit antenna is advantageous in applications requiring a conformal configuration, e.g., in aerospace systems, mounting the antenna presents challenges. One of these challenges is with respect to the manner in which it is fed such that conformality and satisfactory radiation coverage and directivity are maintained and losses to surrounding surfaces are reduced.
An antenna feed assembly for a phased array antenna with a wide frequency bandwidth and a wide scan angle is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,483,464. The '464 patent is assigned to the current assignee of the present invention, and is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. In particular, this antenna can be conformally mounted to a surface, and the antenna feed assembly includes a respective feed line organizer body having passageways therein for receiving the respective coaxial feed lines for a corresponding antenna element. Each respective feed line organizer body is individually coupled to the ground plane using four screws. Although this patent discloses a significant advance in such antennas, individually coupling the feed line organizer bodies to the ground plane is a tedious and time consuming process, especially when the phased array antenna includes a large number of antenna elements. In addition, manufacturing costs may be increased as a result of this process.